The Heart of Aperture Science
by TopHatRose
Summary: Imi Graceline was never a popular girl at school, with boys or girls. Ridiculed for her nerdy dad and her obsession with nature. She usually kept to herself about her problems in her life, but when her dad comes home injured by a project he was working on at Aperture Science, she knew she had to take action. Collaboration between me and my friend Flutters.
1. Chapter 1

Imi lay sprawled on her back on her bed, staring up at her heart-dotted ceiling. She had decorated her room with pink heart wallpaper and lacy purple curtains, which was awesome- when she was six. Now she just kind of hated it, so she plastered every corner except the ceiling with environmental posters.

 ** _"_** ** _SAVE THE WHALES!"_**

 ** _"_** ** _STOMP OUT BULLYING!"_**

 ** _"_** ** _RAINFORESTS ARE PEOPLE TOO!"_**

All this and more, along with some Bob Marley and Simple Minds posters. She didn't really like very many people, but the few exceptions were pretty cool.

Her door pushed open, seemingly by itself. Eighty pounds of fur and muscle in the form of a shaggy black Newfoundland vaulted onto her bed and settled next to her torso. Imi rolled over to snuggle with Sammy, her favorite pet.

"Nobody understands me, Sammy! Everyone at school hates me because I'm different! I don't know if I've been doing something wrong this whole time or what."

Sammy looked at her with his chocolatey-brown cookie eyes and licked her chin. She straightened up into a cross legged position and took his huge head in her hands.

"And you know what," she sniffled, her sadness giving way to rage, "I don't even care. Nobody cares about me, why should I care about them? The entire human race can go suck it. I'm fine with just you, boy."

She glanced at her Bat Woman wall clock and breathed heavily through her nose. "Nine O'clock. Dad should be home in a few minutes. He's the only good human on this planet, I swear. I've never even seen him set a mouse trap."

Sammy nodded, almost as if he understood her, then raced out the door, down the stairs, and waited by the door like he always did.

Imi spent the next hour holed up in her room blasting music through her headphones in the way that the health teachers always say will make you deaf in ten minutes. She assumed that her father was already home, even though she didn't hear him. Nowadays he was so busy with work sometimes he wouldn't even come home to have dinner, and would instead stay at the labs all day. He always told her, though.

Just like a good father should.  
She shut off her music and waited patiently. Almost immediately the familiar sound of the screen door slamming crashed throughout the house. Imi vaulted out of her top bunk, threw the door open, and raced downstairs. Her dad was standing in the doorway, spectacles askew, brown hair mussed up, scrubby whiskers on his face.

And blood soaking his white lab coat.

Imi gasped, and her vision immediately contracted to a tiny pinhole in panic. Without thinking, she ran over to him and held his hand tightly. Throwing an arm around his shoulder, which wasn't hard because she was six inches taller than him, and supporting him as best as she could, she led him over to the couch. She supported his head quickly with pillows and padded the area with the most blood with paper towels.

"Dad, you're hurt! Just- just stay calm…Lie down and relax. I'm calling the ambulance."

Before she could run to do so, he grabbed her arm. His grip was surprisingly strong for someone who looked like they had been hit by a truck. His lip was split, and a bruise was darkening on his left eye.

"No… No, Imi. Wait. They'll know if you do."

 _Oh god oh god oh god._ Imi pulled away and laid his arm down beside him. "Dad, just try to relax. You're going into shock. Just stay calm. Everything is going to be okay."

Her voice caught on the last word. Her dad had always said that to her when she was sick or injured.

"I love you."

"Imi. I'll tell you what happened. Just calm down."

She kneeled beside him. "Dad. Who did this to you?" Tears poured from her eyes and she looked like she was going to be sick. She maintained her grip on his hand.

"Imi- we finished the project we were working on. The turrets. They-they shot everyone. One of them was defective." His voice caught. "They shot everyone."

"Oh my god. Dad. If we call 911, they'll arrest you for working on something so dangerous without a license!" Imi's dad had never shot a gun in his life. He always carried a jackknife and some Mace, but never a gun. He always said that the people carrying guns were more dangerous than the guns themselves, and he didn't want any part of it. And now he had been shot by his own special project. The turrets. Imi almost couldn't understand it.

"It's okay sweetie. Everything's gonna be fine." His voice was getting more and more strained with every word.

"I love you. So, so much."

His eyes closed.

"No! No, wait! DAD! Don't leave me!"

Imi buried her head in his chest and sobbed. _Why God? Why did it have to be today?_

She stood up, placing his hand on his chest. She picked up the phone, curling the wire around her hand, and called 911.

" _911, what's your emergency?_ "

"My dad just came home from work. He was shot. Please. Send help," Imi heard herself saying, even though it was already too late. She knew he was dead.

" _Oh. Okay. Where are the bullet wounds? We'll send you an ambulance right away._ _Just remain calm and dress the wounds._ "

Sammy had been sitting off to the side, almost as if her were unsure of what to do. Now he was nuzzling her father's hand, digging his nose into his palm and whimpering.

"But he's _dead_!"

" _Do you know who he was shot by?_ "

"These-these robots he was working on at work! They- something went wrong!"

There was a few second's pause as the lady digested this new information.

" _Miss, this line is for emergencies only. If you want to prank someone else with your little robot story, that's fine. Don't call again unless someone's really injured or killed._ "

"But- WAIT! I swear it's true! I need help! I'm so scared- please-"

At that exact moment Sammy started to whimper even louder from the couch. He raised his head and howled.

" _Is that someone LAUGHING behind you?!_ "

"WAIT! NO-"

 _Click._

Imi slammed the phone onto the receiver in frustration. A chip of plastic broke off and bounced against the linoleum floor.

She knew what she had to do now.

She ran up the stairs to the hall closet and grabbed a thick woolen hat, her dad's huge leather coat, and some gloves. Before she pulled them on over her striped pajamas, she went over to her dad.

"Dad. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I'm gonna find the people who made you work on that project."

Imi's eyes flashed dangerously. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them off with a huge glove.

"They're gonna pay."

She grabbed a picture from the mantel over the fireplace. It portrayed a nine-year-old Imi, her dad, and her mother. Imi hadn't known what was happening the night her mother stormed from the house with her briefcase, all she knew was that her dad had cried for months, and her she hadn't seen her mom since then. She still loved her though. Him too. She crammed the picture into her pocket.

She tied Sammy's leash around his neck ran outside into the freezing Michigan wind with him in tow.


	2. Chapter 2

Imi's closest neighbor was a tall, twenty-something woman who frequented the YMCA gym like her life depended on it. Imi suspected that she didn't like kids, but she knew for a fact she loved dogs. She never had the time to go to all the trouble of adopting one though, so she figured that, because she couldn't take care of him by herself anymore, that would be the perfect place for Sammy's new home. Clomping up onto the front porch and shaking the clipped grass from her boots, she kneeled down beside her best friend since she was six. Sammy looked at her with a happy, confused look on his face. _Hey, where're we going? I love going places! What's wrong with Daddy? Why do you look so sad?_

She hugged him around his thickly furred, muscled neck. "I'm so sorry, sweety. I love you, but I can't take care of you anymore. I'll be back to visit. I promise. I'll miss you."

Before she could change her mind and run away with him, she bound the leash around the doorknob and rang the doorbell three times. If she had stayed, she would have seen a few lights flicker on behind the curtains, and then a very surprised college student open the door to a huge new best friend.

But Imi had already disappeared into the freezing blackness.

Aperture Science was only about a fifteen minute walk away from her house. The school bus passed the huge, shiny white paneled building every day before the bus rolled into the much less impressive grimy brick school building. Where everybody teased her, and the boys threw stuff at her, and her teachers hated her, and-

 _No_. Imi shook those thoughts from her head. She didn't care what everyone thought of her. She didn't care about them. She didn't care about anything except what she was doing now.

She didn't really have a plan, she came to realize as she turned the corner and walked along the sidewalk. She would have to formulate one once she got there.

She was so wrapped up in planning that she almost didn't notice when she finally arrived. Wrapping her coat around her tall, somewhat chubby frame, she smacked the front swinging doors open and trudged into the lobby, shaking water and grime off her boots. Her breath frosted in the chilly air.

 _Weird,_ she thought. _Shouldn't the doors be locked?_

That's when she noticed the complete and utter lack of people. No one was there at all. The lobby, decked in brightly colored chairs, posters, and carpeting was empty and chilly. Cold seeped into the room through the open doorway, and Imi hurriedly slammed it shut. The sound echoed through the room creepily. The lights were off, but the street lights in the parking lot out front were bright enough to make everything give off a thick black shadow.

She walked to the back of the room to the secretaries desk. Usually someone was there to greet people and then call security if they didn't have an ID, but no. _Maybe they're all on a break,_ Imi reasoned with herself. But she knew that wasn't true. What had her dad said? Something about… the turrets shooting everyone. But that couldn't be true, this place was huge! Turrets were stationary, they couldn't possibly kill so many people in so little-

" _There you are."_

Imi screamed and ducked behind the secretaries desk as gunshots exploded all around her. She blocked her ears and curled up with her head between her knees. It seemed like hours before it- whatever it was - stopped shooting at the desk she had hid behind. Something clicked against the wood in front of the desk, like a huge spider scuttling across the floor.

Her breathing quickened when she realized what it was. _No. They didn't. Those things were dangerous enough when they couldn't move, and now they've made them walk. Dear God. How could they be so STUPID?!_

She peeked above the desk, alert and ready to duck again if it shot at her. There it was. It looked just like a normal turret, but with three spider-like four jointed legs that it used to clatter across the floor.

Imi stole a glance to the left. _There!_ A door next to an uncomfortable-looking armchair had a handwritten notebook-paper sign on it that read,

 **ROBOTICS TESTING. DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT A LEGITIMATE ID, OR YOU'RE FIRED. C.J, CEO OF APERTURE LABORATORIES.**

Imi quickly looked at the turret. It was over to the other side of the room, near the doors, inspecting behind chairs and under a coffee table. Looking for her, she realized.

She knew what she had to do, but it wouldn't be easy. She picked up a travel dictionary next to a stack of folders on the desk, and heaved it with all her might to the wall ten feet to the right of the turret. The bright red light from its eye swung over to where it had landed and settled on the cover. Imi bolted for the door.

She swung it open, vaulted through, and slammed it shut. Her heart was going faster than it had ever gone before, but as she regained her breath, it slowed back to normal. Slumping against the wall, she took a few deep breaths. _I'm safe now. At least those things can't open doors, or else I would be fu-_

The doorknob rattled slightly, then the door shook. The turret burst through, spraying splinters everywhere.

Imi launched herself down the hallway, running faster than she had ever run before. Arms and legs pumping to their maximum capacity, she rounded a corner and continued on her way, deeper and deeper into Aperture.

She knew, kind of, where she could hide, but it was a while away. When she came the year before for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day 1984, she wasn't really paying attention when they showcased the progress they had made on the GLaDOS project. She remembered that something kept going wrong when they turned it on, but she couldn't quite remember what. It probably wasn't anything important. Something sciencey and hard-to-understand, more likely than not.

The hallway had doors on either side, but they were all wooden and flimsy. Not able to protect her from the walking death machine closing in behind her. She realized that it wasn't shooting at her. _Of course!_ She thought frantically, _It can't shoot while it's running! It'll have to find me and stay still to shoot me. Thank God for design flaws._

The hallway was quickly closing in on a dead end. Imi slammed against the door, fumbled with the lock for a few terrifying seconds, and then burst through into the next room.

She locked the door and dragged a desk up against it in a few seconds. The door was metal plated, so she was almost sure that the turret wouldn't be able to burst through.

Almost.

She inhaled deep breaths, her chest feeling ragged, considering her terror.

She took a look around the room she was in, carefully making sure nothing was dangerous.

It was a rather small room, with only a small keyboard, monitor, window, and desk. What really made her do a double-take was what was through the window.

It was set over sixty feet off the ground, and Imi could see something moving around below the window. It was hard to make it out though, as the glass was tinted and warped. She directed her attention to the center of the room. She did a double take.

Imi stared in shock at the _thing_ hanging from the ceiling. The last time she had come here, the GLaDOS project had only been a few huge computer hard drives covered in white tarp. They had made a lot of progress. _Understatement of the year_ , Imi thought. Her eyes welled up suddenly. She hiccupped.

 _Dad used to say that all the time_ , she thought as a tear slid down her cheek.

She shook her head and refocused. What was that down there? Pressing both hands against the window, she tilted her head and squinted to make it out. Were those _people_? Why would they let one of those turrets loose in the facility?

She turned her head to check that it was gone. She didn't hear any scraping or lock-picking going on out there, so she assumed that she wasn't in any immediate danger.

She looked over at the computer monitor. She had learned how to use a Macintosh PC at school, and she had memorized how to program a small sprite, and with her dad's help, they had made a functioning, albeit small and pointless airplane game.

That had been a lot of fun.

She noticed that it was still plugged in, even though the desk it was on had been dragged over the door. She turned it on, and some flickering green text appeared.

 **APERTURE LABORATORIES GLaDOS COMMAND SEQUENCE**

 **GLaDOS CURRENT STATE: OFFLINE**

 **CONNECT TO INTERNET?**

Imi looked, confused at the words. What was an 'internet'? She typed her answer. She was curious to see what that thing was.

 **CONNECTING TO APERNET, APERTURE'S AND AMERICA'S ONLY WIRELESS INFORMATION SERVICE.**

 **4 FILES FOUND. ACCESS FILES Y/N?**

 **/Y/**

 **PASSWORD REQUIRED.**

Imi stood back a bit. Hadn't her dad once told her what the passcode was? She racked her brains to remember. Wasn't it… Friend? Buddy? Something like that. She tried both, but to no avail. It booted her out of the system, deleting all her progress, leaving a note that read:

 **NICE TRY, GREG FROM ACCOUNTING. DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO READ MY FILES. SINCERELY, PAUL. AND BY THE WAY, IF YOU'RE READING THIS AND YOU'RE NOT GREG, THE PASSWORD IS COMPANION. YOU'RE A JERK GREG!**

Imi couldn't help but giggle at the person who coded the computers here. She restarted it, and it immediately opened up again.

 **PASSWORD REQUIRED.**

 **/companion/**

 **PASSWORD ACCEPTED.**

 **BRING GLaDOS ONLINE Y/N?**

Imi's eyes widened. Had they really made this so easy? She snuck a peek out the window. The scientists were still just milling around, talking to each other.

Imi felt a hot rush of rage. She could feel the blood rushing to her face, hear it pounding in her ears. Who did the think they were, standing there talking, so happy and cheerful when her father was dead? How dare they laugh at jokes or plan for what would happen the next day, when her dad would never do anything ever again, rotting in a cold box six feet below? It was almost as if they didn't care, or even was aware of her families existence. Had she been lucid and reasoning at that time, she would have come to the conclusion that maybe these scientists were preoccupied with their own families, friends and jobs. Maybe they had no idea her dad was dead. Dozens upon dozens of injuries happened at Aperture every day, so they had probably gotten used to it and brushed it off as an everyday occurrence.

Had she been reasoning, she would have realized this.

But she wasn't.

She turned away from the window, stomped back to the computer and clicked three keys. Just three letters and punctuation symbols that would change her life.

 **/y/**

 **ACCESS CONFIRMED. CONGRATULATIONS!**

The room trembled suddenly. Imi lost her balance and fell to the ground on her elbows, wincing with pain.

Something was happening. The room gave another violent jolt, and Imi realized that she had just made a very, very bad decision. She crawled over to the window. Staring down at what was happening below, she started hyperventilating out of fear.

A sickly green fog was racing over the floor towards the people. _Oh God._ She got to her knees, pressing her hands against the glass. The floor was still trembling, and she could make out the shapes of the scientists banging on the doors, screaming for help. She could barely make it out, but she could hear them screaming and crying, desperate to escape.

" _The Enrichment Center would like to thank you for you willing participation in our neurotoxin potency test. Although serious injuries may occur, such as death, this is a great help to our facility in general. Thank you for your consideration."_

A woman's voice, drenched in stiffness and devoid of all emotion. _GLaDOS,_ Imi realized. _Oh my God, what have I done? How could I be so stupid?!_

She knew she had to get out of there. She bolted to her feet, rushing over to the door and beginning to drag the desk away from it.

" _Are you still there? Searching,_ " said a small, childlike voice outside the door. Imi almost had a nervous breakdown then and there. "Go AWAY!" She screamed at the door, to no avail. She dropped to her knees and clenched the sides of her head with her hands. Her heart was beating hard and fast, slamming against her ribs like a caged animal. Her breathing quickened. Bits of plaster flaked from the ceiling, but Imi couldn't escape the crumbling room.

She was trapped.


End file.
